I have heard many times that business owners feel that their financial statements are written in a foreign language or that their financials feel like peering into a big black box uncertain what it truly contains. Others describe it as a fog where they see the outline of their business but it’s not clear how to navigate the rugged coastline.
Often a business owner will understand the income statement and the fact that if you have a positive number at the bottom of the report, it’s good. The bigger the better! But then I hear, “wow I had a good year but I don’t have any cash left to pay my bills or make other investments.”
Your financial story has two sides to it, not just one. It has the income statement plus the balance sheet. Your balance sheet story is important because if you don’t manage it properly, it can “rob Peter”- the income statement, to “pay Paul”- the balance sheet. How you manage your working capital will ultimately tell you how much cash is left in your bank account.
Before we go further, let’s define key components of working capital that drive cash flow. In most companies Accounts Receivable, Inventory, and Accounts Payable are key cash flow working capital components. How you manage these three key balance sheet accounts determines how much cash is left over. Simply put, you want to have the shortest payment terms possible for your customers (Accounts Receivable) and you want the longest payment terms possible to pay your vendors (Accounts Payable). For your inventory, you want to turn it over quickly and not let it sit in your warehouse gathering dust.
By connecting the financial story of the income statement to the financial story of the balance sheet, you can effectively see how cash flow is generated and how much of it you get to keep.
Trillium’s Numbers Navigator™ helps lift the fog and navigates you to the safety of the harbor where your company can see how to re-fuel and get back out on the high seas of commerce. Through Trillium’s financial coaching and data gathering process, we gain an understanding of the business model and its drivers to effectively recommend actions best suited for a company to increase cash flow.
Trillium’s Financial Coaching services and Numbers Navigator™ helped Prominent Placement, Inc. (“PPI”) learn what financial drivers would help the business generate more cash flow and achieve several key financial goals. Click on the following link to learn more about how Trillium’s Numbers Navigator™ can help you: Numbers Navigator™
“Understanding the financial end of my business has always been my weakest area. After working with a variety of other financial advisors over the years, Mike Iverson was finally able to explain my own company’s financial data to me in a way that really made sense. He has educated me on how decisions we make all year long will impact our cash flow at the end of the year (and every day). I feel like, after nearly a decade in business, someone has finally shined a flashlight into our numbers so that I can really see and understand them. I feel much more in control.”
Stacy Williams
Prominent Placement, Inc.